The State Of The Personal Computer

[lio256]

[citation][nom]Anonyn3nf2389[/nom]If I were to switch to Mac I would suddenly find a huge selection of my software again or need to start forking out the $$$. On the other hand, it's perfect for the average consumer who wouldn't mess around with things like this.[/citation]

You could use virtulisation software such as VMware or Parallels Desktop to run your existing Windows software within OS X instead of replacing it if you really need to. But then again, I guess you must be talking more about the time you will need to reinvest to find software and those keygens you mention. But look on the bright side, you will probably see your virus infection rate drop to an even more amazing zero.

 

[jaragon13]

[citation][nom]thr3ddy[/nom]Two words: Kernel Panic. damn straight.What a moron.[/citation]

 

[shine]

I love you, I've been waiting so long for an article like this.

Very very nice thank you.

 

[Tjik]

[citation][nom]stealth_blade[/nom]I have to disagree with this. USB Class drivers are quickly advancing and providing standard ways to interface with USB devices. USB sticks have run off of a standard class driver for years.[/citation]
Agreed and your choice of the word "advancing" is significant. While we still have issues with some firmware we also see a lot of improvements. I won't say that Linux is the whole explanation for why we see these improvements, but I suppose it has had some impact. When you refer to Windows, isn't it so that Microsoft has shown more of an interest in "cleaning" up and getting some matters with drivers in order?

Maybe our view isn't so different after all. Linux also needs to improve and I noticed that Fedora with its 10th release has put an effort into getting more Web cams to work right out-of-the-box.

 

[Guest]

MyXPalmost never crashes!
MyXP uses about as much battery as OSX!
My XPs not affected by malware,since I have sufficient and wellworking firewall and anti-virus.
My XP supports hundreds more programs.
The price Ipayed for my notebook with XP MCE edition on would give me a MAC single core 1GHZ!
My XP can be transplanted to another system, in case I decide to scrap this pc, and buy a new one!
My XP starts up within a minute,is fast and responsive,and shuts down within 30 seconds, despite it's older hardware!
My XP is customisable the way I want it,I can disable functions as I see needed,optimizing performance even more!
My XP works razor fast! Faster than any other OS I've seen,yes faster than Linux!
My XPmakes use of 2 mousebuttons and a wheel,something I'd never trade for the single mouse button of OSX.
My XP can fit in modded cases,with Neon,HTPC towers,Gaming and LAN machines,servers, .. anything thayt OSXcan not fit in!
In short,My XP is unbeated by any other OS out there! And only in the newest games needs to submit to DX10 (but since I don't play games I could not care less!
My XP plays back HD movies perfectly fine, ...
What more could I want?
No OSX crap! No Vissta crap!
Maybe my next OS will be the OS that comes after Windows 7!

 

[AlanDang]

[citation][nom]neiroatopelcc[/nom]"Ye I know vista 64 is a lot more stable than vista 32, but at least at my place, that's still not very stable.[/citation]

The thing is that your system didn't ship with Vista x64. Vista x64 isn't the best choice for legacy hardware -- you have to check to make sure the hardware/software is compatible (though less than you would w/Mac or Linux). We're in the middle of the x64 transition, so it will take some time before "upgrading to x64" works for most system configs. On a factory x64 setup, or a home-built one where you've done the research ahead of time, most people would say that x64 is more stable.

But definitely agree with you -- not every system will find x64 to be more reliable due to the drivers.

 

[lio256]

[citation][nom]ProDigit80[/nom]...What more could I want?[/citation]
A life?

 

[foroneus]

The only real fact is that an OS must do what the user needs to, nothing more nothing less, if your OS does that be happy.

The Three Females.

Linux, The Nice Girl from the next door.
Linux Works Perfect for business, NP organizations and for simple users; haves great RO"I" I=0 over time, great philosophy, runs out of the box with nice bundled software, config difficulty if you want more but...there's always the IT dude. Mac Inspiration, Windows envy.
My choice.

Windows, Your Unloving future Wife
Windows is a needed pain, MS TAX + AV + Office Productivity before doing something, great compatibility, home like PC, I think security companies give some nice check every christmas to MS dudes.

A sophisticated white or silver girlfriend
Mac OS ... MAC TAX ,deep pocket budget, non-sense politics, fancy look, fancy software. Kind of a prom queen girlfriend that we need to boast to have any sense, but when the real deal is on the front, go to your wife or the girl from next door.

So get what you need don't force apples to windows, or penguins to apples.

 

[AlanDang]

[citation][nom]radnor[/nom]You are correct about linux. But i should add one thing. WINE.It is getting better every version that launches, but still needs a lot of love.[/citation]

WINE has improved tremendously and the best glimpse of the future of Windows-on-Linux is the NDIS Wrapper which lets you use Windows network drivers for Linux. That said, even if WINE was 100% compatible with Windows, it still won't "destroy" traditional Windows or Mac.

Do you remember OS/2? I do.

 

[malveaux]

Lol,

Ok... so Linux is `nice girl next door' and Windows is your crappy wife, and Mac is that hot business chic you can't even get a date with? Well, to touche that...

Linux is the geeky homely girl who's interesting and just gets better with time, more sexy as you dress her yourself instead of letting herself do it, and she does all the dirty things you tell her to. Most excellent. But it takes work to get her to trust you in the first place. Lots of work.

Windows is your average woman. Lots of maintenance and it'll work. You get your ups and downs. But it gets the job done. You just won't be happy very often even after putting a lot of work into it.

Mac is that girl that looks like a bombshell and just smells of sweetness. You see her and think "omg i wish i could get her!" Then that one day you actually work up the balls to ask her on a date, and shockingly she says yes, you realize after just a few moments that she's all looks and has nothing interesting to her. She says she's really cool, does all kinds of easy stuff, doesn't require much and doesn't have as many problems as those `other' girls. Unfortunately you realized the truth and she's full of crap, empty, hallow, and boring. She looks good, but like any hollywood date, the first one is the best, after that, you're looking for someone who actually gets your jokes.



Cheers,

 

[Abydosone]

[citation][nom]libraryeli[/nom]So, then why do my Windows systems crash more often than my linux machines?? EVERY app on my linux machines is 3rd party, so why doesn't it crash all the time. Also, why do my Ubuntu installations run better than my XP installations on the exact same peice of hardware... that Dell setup to run XP in the first place. Ignorant, don't go throwing that word around, some of it might stick to you.[/citation]

HAHA!

Wow, you do know there a difference between Software and Drivers right?

 

[tipoo]

[citation][nom]lio256[/nom]A life?[/citation]


true that.

 

[AlanDang]

[citation][nom]Kamujin[/nom]A very good article, but I found it odd that you believe OS X to be the most secure operating system. In the pwn2own contest recently, OS X was compromised in only 2 minutes. Vista fell a day later to a flaw in 3rd party software. Linux didn't fall.[/citation]

"The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist."

There is no such thing as a 100% secure system. The default installation of OpenBSD is the closest thing to a secure operating system. This is achieved by installing very little in the default OS and by having audited code. Even OpenBSD has had remote exploits.

You have to understand the details of the contest. The MacBook Air was the first to be targeted because the it offered the best prize and the most PR.

People have visions of pwn2own as this massive free-for-all with hundreds of hackers going at it. In fact, pwn2own is a contest with very rigid rules. You have to wait in line to attack a target. Only one person gets to hack a machine at a time. You get 30 minutes to try. If you aren't hack it, you go to the back line and wait until your turn. You can only win one laptop per contestant. First come, first serve.

Only four teams participated.

Day 1: True remote execution attack. No attempts made.

Day 2: Browsers and mail apps included. The winner of MacBook Air knew he had a working exploit and was the first in line to try it. Hacked in 2 minutes.

2 minutes offers a lot of press time, but it doesn't reflect the time spent BEFORE the contest to discover the exploit.

Day 3: Plug-ins are included. Vista gets taken down via a Flash exploit.

The two-man team that took down Vista did so with their personal MacBook Pros.

Important Fact: The Flash exploit that took down Vista also affects Linux flash. The contestants just weren't interested in going for the Ubuntu machine.
Says who: The guys who sponsored the contest.

 

[derek_c]

[citation][nom]neiroatopelcc[/nom]"For the average consumer, the transition to 64-bit means a more stable operating system." Kinda amusing! Ye I know vista 64 is a lot more stable than vista 32, but at least at my place, that's still not very stable. My ati graphics driver frequently crashes and has to be recovered by vista - good thing the recovery works, so I just have to sit back and wait - don't even have to reboot or restart wow or the movie that was running etc. May want to rewind a bit though But still - it DOES crash, and it takes more time booting than 32 bit on my system (probably the raid drivers fault), and neither my e-tech nor my logitech webcam works with 64bit (the e-tech does with 32 bit). So more stable? perhaps, but certainly not in my home.[/citation]

So you're basically blaming Microsoft for third party drivers?

 

[AlanDang]

[citation][nom]JimmiG[/nom]"But "system crashes"? The Windows Operating System is *very* stable and has been ever since the consumer versions switched over to the NT kernel with the release of XP in 2001.[/citation]

Agreed. But "consumer" system crashes often reflects poorly written malware or even buggy commercial security software.

[citation]It's wrong to blame Windows when third party programs crash or poorly written drivers bluescreen. If I were to go crazy on my Ubuntu install and download stuff from all over the place, I would soon be in dependency hell and the whole system would break down. Same with OSX though the limited library of available software and the strict control enforced by Apple makes it a bit more difficult to do really stupid things on OSX.[/citation]

EXACTLY. Windows itself isn't bad. It's the Windows "eco-system." Apple forces you to give up freedom, but the trade-off is more stability. This is what Apple embodies -- the treatment of a PC not as a multipurpose computer, but a consumer electronics device. It's this control that makes Apple as appealing as it is to some, and as abhorent as it is to others. Apple isn't about thinking different, it's about joining the herd. If the herd meets your needs... why not?

 

[fletchoid]

I have been using computers of one sort or another, both at work, and for entertainment, for over 30 years. I have used numerous versions of DOS, Windows 3.1, 95, 98, 2000, NT, XP Home, XP Professional. I work with Macs all day, every day, so I am very familiar with Mac OS 9 and 10 and an early Unix derived OS called NEXT. My platform of choice is the “PC” because it allows me the flexibility to build my own machine, with MY choice of hardware, in a configuration that suits MY needs, all for a lot less than the inflated price of a Mac. I am NOT a computer professional; I have just worked at jobs where computers were necessary, and have been a hard core gamer since Pong. When XP came out, there were a few bugs at first, but in general, the new OS did what I expected it to do. I could play all my games, and all my hardware and software worked reasonably well. When Vista came out, I was blown away by how pretty it looked in all the ads, and on desktops in the stores. Many of my friends and colleagues bought new computers with Vista installed, and so began the bitchfest. Oh My God! I have NEVER heard so many complaints about relatively new hardware and software not working. My friends were going on buying sprees, trying to regain the functionality they had just a few months earlier. New Printers, new software, new video camera, new video cards, new scanner, new this, new that. Sure Vista is real pretty, and supposedly more secure, but XP was doing everything I wanted, without problems, so I thought I would just wait. Well, apparently, Micro$oft has other plans. They are going to discontinue support for XP. Of course, as the problems with Vista keep cropping up, the date when XP dies keeps being pushed back.
So, with the possibility that my still adequate OS (XP) was going to be put down by Micro$oft, I started looking around for an alternative for my next computer project. I wanted to make an energy efficient system to do all my surfing, emailing, office tasks, etc so I wouldn't be sucking 650 watts 24/7 with my gaming rig. Why am I running my gaming machine 24/7?? Well, I have learned from bitter experience that if you don't update your virus definitions AT LEAST once per day, and do a total system virus scan, and a total system spyware scan, with updated spyware definitions of course, and back up the registry, and defrag the hard drive and repair the registry and remove crap from the registry and update Windows with the latest security updates etc etc your PC becomes as slow as a Hippo wallowing in quicksand, and eventually gets so corrupted that you have to spend a whole weekend cursing and swearing at Bill Gates and his buddies while you try to get the goddamn printer working so you can get that friggin assignment in on Monday morning. So, I run my gaming rig 24/7 so while I am sleeping I can run a bucket load of software packages that keep things ship shape, and keep me from going through that EVER AGAIN.
I kept having wild eyed fanatics tell me I should try Linux, but I thought that was an OS only for geeks and nerds, requiring lots of arcane programming knowledge, black horn rimmed glasses held together with tape, and terminal dandruff. (ha, ha, a Linux pun.... “terminal” dandruff).
After a particularly long and stressful weekend trying to help a friend recover ALL his business files from a Vista machine that he was seriously thinking about taking down to the nearest railway tracks, filling with lighter fluid, and setting on fire just as the 1 am train to Windsor came by, I thought maybe I should try Linux, just to see what it looked like.
After a bit of research, I decided to install Ubuntu because it seemed to get the best reviews from people with similar expectations from an OS as I have. I was fully expecting to sit there for 40 or more minutes, answering some damn question or other every 7 and a half minutes, choose my country, wait a few more minutes, answer another question, wait some more, answer another silly question, wait, wonder why they couldn't ask all these questions at once, wait some more, oh goody, a countdown... only another 13 minutes. Etc. .. But, I was disappointed.

I put the disk in, answered a few questions, clicked Install....... and then went and did my laundry. When I came back in less than 20 minutes, Ubuntu was running on my computer! Well, must be a piece of crap if it is so easy to install... right? I went on the web to see if there were any cool desktop themes to install on my new Ubuntu desktop, and came across a video of the GNOME desktop.... Holey Crap!! I was impressed! I spent about an hour figuring out how to turn on all the fancy stuff, and bada boom bada bing, I had a desktop that blew away the $375 Vista package desktop. Only this was FREE!! I transferred all my Firefox bookmarks from WinXP to Ubuntu. Fired up my email, and Open Office, and started doing stuff. The only way I could tell I was in Ubuntu, was to open up about 5 copies of Firefox, my email program, and some Microsoft Word documents, place them on the 4 sides of my 3D cube desktop filled with moving gears, floating in space with a sexy space themed Skydome background, and then look at my system resources to see that my computer was hardly working at all!! Holey Crapola!! The migration of applications to Ubuntu began. Now, the ONLY reason to use XP will be The Witcher, Fallout 3 and Far Cry 2. If only I could run ALL the latest games on Linux. How much does and Xbox cost?
So, I would like to take this opportunity to thank Micro$oft for all their hard work on Vista. If it were not for all the outrage, anger, screaming, shouting and swearing I have witnessed from my friends who got sucked into Vista, I would NEVER have tried Linux, because I would have been initmidated by the little bit of extra work required to configure Linux to my exact needs. I would not have experienced a TOTALLY FREE, easy to use, gorgeous operating system, that blows away the $375 dollar version of Vista, and would not spent hours giggling like a school girl while spinning my 4 faced, 3D, space cadet cuboidal desktop around and around until I needed to take a gravol. I would not have been able to turn off my power sucking gaming rig whenever I am not using it. I would not have been able to stop worrying about viruses, spyware, Blue Screens of Death, random uninstallations of my keyboard, hard drives that suddenly cease to exist, printer drivers that stop working, popups for viagra and casinos and stupid smiling happy face icons that move, and fake adware removal tools that tell me I have 756 dangerous programs on my computer, but if I send $79.99 with my credit card number, bank account PIN, and dates when I am on vacation and the house is empty, so the Nigerian Prince can come and leave bags of his inheritance in my living room, and OH MY #$@!#$KING GOD YOU HAVE TO BE KIDDING ME!!!!!!!!!!!

My only regret is that I didn't install Linux YEARS AGO!

Goodbye Micro$oft. Bend over, I know just where to install Vista.

 

[AlanDang]

[citation][nom]Tjik[/nom]In many other technical areas we're used to have different niches, but when it comes to computer operating systems for desktops it suddenly becomes a question of being mainstream, not about technical strength or the diversity of user preferences.[/citation]

I actually agree with you entirely. I may not have been clear enough in my article. I'm advocating the use of task-specific operating systems. These are tools to achieve what you want. I use the three major operating systems on a regular basis to do the things I need to do. Being mainstream doesn't win -- it just means it's mainstream.

Linux isn't supposed to be mainstream and that's why predictions of "year of desktop Linux" are always wrong. That's not the niche of today's distributions.

Te beauty of Linux is that the ecosystem -- meaning the hardware, software and *user community* is one that makes it possible to create a mainstream desktop Linux with the proposal I made.

 

[Guest]

Until linux programs stop using indecipherable names like "Evolution, Firefox, F-Spot, Gimp, Brasero, Banshee, xgl/Compiz" it isn't going to get anywhere on the desktop.

To me it sums up what is wrong with the linux, people want to keep it 'geeky', even my favourite distro, Ubuntu has a silly name and the releases are even sillier, which is fun, but just confusing for the average Joe.

The average user will have no idea what Gimp or Banshee does vs names like Photoshop and iTunes which make inherent sense and reduce the confusion and make it seem 'serious'.

 

[hellcat]

The security of Visa is much better than XP was. IF OSX became the more dominant OS say in the next 10 years then more people would write viruses and malware for it. It is who is more popular. We see it in every day life. What cars get stolen more often, Honda's and Toyotas, why because their more popular. The more popular you are the more the Paparazzi take your picture. Criminals (and Paparazzi) don't want to deal with the 8.23%, they want the 90.3%. If OSX ever hits 40-10% mark then I guarantee you the malware and virus' will start coming. It has nothing to do with Mac being more secure thats just what Apple wants everyone tho think. An OS no matter what OS it is will be vulnerable and thats just a matter of fact. No OS will have no virus' or malware, its just the criminal pipeline don't find Mac worth it yet.

Microsoft use to be really good at marketing, thats one reason how they got to where they are now. They blew it when the Mac/PC ads came out. They didn't hit quick and strong like they should have. They could have probably stopped them cold if they would have made their own ads putting PC vs. Mac and showed all the things PC can do that Mac can't. They decided to wait months and then make commercials with Seinfeld. Their marketing was weak so the Mac/PC ads keep going.

Linux probably will never make it to the desktop. Linux is a geek OS and aways will be. There isn't any company who is seriously trying to make a Linux OS for the masses. Sure people will say Ubuntu, or Xandros are getting there but their not. For a Linux distro to become mainstream it would have to be rewritten like OSX was. OSX was built from UNIX and they didn't try and use anything but the basic UNIX code. Most Linux distros are based on Fedora, Red Had, Suse, Slackware, Debian or Ubuntu (which is actually based on Debian. They basically use one of two package managements RPM and DPKG, and they basically use either Gnome or KDE. So Linux's system isn't and will never be user friendly until something does something different drastically. Regular people don't want to have to compile drivers, or having to go into command prompt for anything. One thing that Windows and OSX has in common is their both easy enough to use for regular people.

I for any OS to beat Windows it'll have to do something really different. They'll have to make something that really WOW's people and makes the OS much easier than either Windows or OSX. Microsoft is working on their touch system and also speech recognition, which I think both of those together if done well could make a great OS. I'm not sure what Apple or anyone else is working on.

Some people say PC's should be left for regular day things and gaming should just be done on a console. I'm on the fence with this. I may not buy the bleeding edge but I get hardware that can play every game I throw at it (with Crysis I have to lower the settings). On the other hand I hate playing mulitplayer games on the PC because of all the cheats so I play single player games on the PC and multiplayer on the console, BUT I miss my keyboard and mouse on the console. It might also be nice to buy a cheap PC to do regular stuff and then spend $600 or so on a console every 4-6 years, it would save a lot of money.

This is a good time for technology. I look forward to seeing where computers and such goes in the next 5-10 years. To see what Microsoft and Apple have in store, to see if Linux will go beyond what I think it will or just stay geekware.

 

[JimmiG]

@JimmiG, windows is stable, as long as you don't use it, a big chunk of that Pie Graph of Vista Crashes was Microsoft related: 17.9%
http://blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?p=1585

I love the Reliability Monitor. In the last month, I've had quite a few Application Failures: fallout3.exe, winlameprerelease, Unigine (beta 3D engine tech demo), pg2.exe (very early Vista beta of an IP blocker), winamp.exe, Live 7.0.3 (Digital Audio Workstation). In the same time period, I've had one "Windows Failure", which was actually caused by Ableton Live 7.

For example on 2008-10-30 I had no less than four crashes of fallout3.exe, five crashes of oblivion.exe and one firefox crash. Fallout3 was extremely buggy when released so that's expected, and Oblivion was unstable due to the many mods I've installed, forcing me to do some "housekeeping" of the mod library. The firefox crash was the only one I experienced in the last month. All those contributed to make the reliability score plummet, even though Windows itself was never to blame.

On 2008-11-23, my index was 8 and would have continued to rise, but then Acronis True Image Home and its Rescue Media Builder decided to crash, due to my upgrade from version 11 to the newest '09 release going wrong somehow.

The next day, I did experience my one and *only* "Windows failure", which was in fact Ableton Live causing a "Process has locked pages" error due to an incompatible or buggy virtual instrument plugin. The following day Peer Guardian 2 beta crashed again.

 

[yay]

How can people say windows crashes? I run XP X64 and have literally only ever had one crash. And that was because i pushed my GPU too far in a oc test.

Anyone who has crashes has had bad luck with drivers or is just a fool when it comes to computers, thinking they know more than they accually do.

Linux is pretty sexy nowadays, and it can run just about any pc game using wine. Took me a week of afternoons to work everything out to use wine for games. Not really that hard.

 

[JimmiG]

Also I'm pretty sure ati2dvag.dll and n4disp.dll bsods will actually register as "Windows failure". Just because it sais "Windows" doesn't mean Windows itself has crashed...

 

[idisarmu]

Linux users are NOT stuck with only Firefox.

Please quickly boot up Linux and look through the software list in whatever package manager you have before writing the next article involving Linux and criticizing its software availability.

 

[falchard]

I disagree that Mac has better hardware support then Linux. Linux in my opinion has the biggest hardware support since its being used on appliances, game consoles, and servers.

 

[randomizer]

I've never actually used Wine and have barely used Linux, but based on what I get from the AppDB on the WineHQ site most games sort of work. Other times a game worked fine and then a new version of Wine came out and now the game doesn't work at all. I don't want to have 90% of my software sort of work or not work at all, I want it to work properly. If it doesn't, then Wine is useless and I'd much rather use Windows which nearly always works fine.